This is a project from one of my level design classes that I took at SMU Guildhall, and for this project, I decided that I wanted to create a level with unique features and style that would make the gameplay unique and enjoyable. Given that many players enjoy fast and exciting gameplay and that Unreal Tournament 4 gives the player some interesting movement abilities, I decided that I wanted to design a level with these ideas in mind and experiment with a design that would also make extensive use of mid-air combat, which has shown potential for being fun in previous games.
I started out designing this level by doing sketches to figure out the overall shape of the level and laying down the main components of a CTF map, such as the team bases, outer base areas, and midground as well as planning the distribution of resources, such as weapons, health and armor pickups. After drafting a promising design, I proceeded to prototype the level in Unreal Tournament Editor using BSP brushes to quickly block out the gameplay space of the level and leaving the aesthetics details for later. Once I had a playable level with all the promised features, I then started to iterate and refine the level gameplay after playtesting with other players and gathering their feedback.
Once I had a solid gameplay layed out in my map, I then started to work on the aesthetics of the level; I begun to replace the BSP brushes with static meshes and work on the lighting to make the level more aesthetically pleasant and refine its look to achieve its current state
The name of this map emerged from the original shape that the outer base area had during the gameplay design stage; the outer base consisted of two semi-circular platforms that resemble the shape of empanadas (a popular pastry in Latin America that has a semi-circular shape) and because these empanada-shaped platforms were surrounding the bases and keeping these for themselves, they were deemed egocentric.
During the development of the level aesthetics, replicating the shape of these platforms with static meshes without making it look weird was a hard thing to do, and because we were not allowed to use custom mesh models to construct our maps, I decided to simplify the shape of the outer base area to make it easier to construct with the given modular pieces and achieve a more polished-looking look for these platforms.Egocentric Empanadas was in fact the working name for this map, and because it was a catchy, fun, and unique name that was well liked among my peers, I decided to keep it and make it part of the gimmick of the level: Egocentric Empanadas!
